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Topic: The Master - SPOILERS! (Read 78069 times)

This is a thread in which people who have seen The Master in its entirety are free to talk about it with impunity. Where spoilers can run rampant and anyone who ventures in prematurely only has himself to blame.

So discuss, lucky ones, and know that until the rest of us huddled masses have the opportunity to watch the film, we'll be just outside, cursing your names under our collective breath.

"By the way, I had the pleasure of being at the screening as well and the shot of two people jumping off a boat is not in the movie. That entire scene of Freddie and the army counselor guy from the first teaser is not in the movie. The shot of Freddie with his arm on a dresser and pointing a gun is not in the movie. The shot of Freddie hanging himself over the side of a boat above the water is not in the movie. The shot of Freddie walking around a corner and along the brick wall is not in the movie. The shot of Freddie waiting in a ditch and chasing a passing vehicle is not in the movie. Plus for a lot of the scenes that ARE in the movie, they used a lot of alternate takes for the trailers. So the experience of seeing the movie can actually be FRESH."

^ That's probably the best news I've heard... Now I know that no matter how many times I've seen and dissected the trailer. I will be watching something entirely new.

On the other hand, it's a shame. Because some of those shots and scenes looked really magnificent.

"By the way, I had the pleasure of being at the screening as well and the shot of two people jumping off a boat is not in the movie. That entire scene of Freddie and the army counselor guy from the first teaser is not in the movie. The shot of Freddie with his arm on a dresser and pointing a gun is not in the movie. The shot of Freddie hanging himself over the side of a boat above the water is not in the movie. The shot of Freddie walking around a corner and along the brick wall is not in the movie. The shot of Freddie waiting in a ditch and chasing a passing vehicle is not in the movie. Plus for a lot of the scenes that ARE in the movie, they used a lot of alternate takes for the trailers. So the experience of seeing the movie can actually be FRESH."[/i

It's good so far and you made a really good work with the red text and all. I mean, now there's no chance that we will miss that there is spoiler in the post. NOW, here is the part where you fucked it all up:

Yeah... In all honesty, I am dissapointed about that. I was really looking forward to seeing that interview scene from the first teaser, and those shots on top of the ship were absolutely gorgeous.

But PTA knows what he's doing and I trust him completely.... Now I'm excited to see what the fuck IS IN the movie. Because for all we know, all the footage and stills they've shown is just leftovers from the Final Cut. Sept. 21 can't come fast enough.

I'm posting this here because there's a couple spoilers in there... Amy talks about working with Anderson.

Amy Adams Spiritual Revival...By Tom Shone (VULTURE)

Amy Adams usually views her own movies through a scrim of self-criticism, but at a recent screening of her new film, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, she watched with eerie detachment. “I was like, I don’t even know what I did in the film or what I didn’t do, or what I need to do, I have no clue.” Near the end, during a scene between her character, the wife of a cult leader, and Joaquin Phoenix’s drifter, “I just sobbed uncontrollably,” she says. “It really broke my heart. Oh God, I’m going to cry again if I think about it.”

We’re having lunch at the Loews Regency Hotel on Park Avenue, where Adams’s Cobb salad sits largely untouched. Suddenly, she tears up right in front of me. “I don’t know why it got to me, I’m not a crier,” she insists, collecting herself. “I’m always, ‘Oh, that’s so drama school.’ No. I’m not that kind of person.” When I ask what it was about the scene, she says it was Phoenix’s character, “so solitary, so seeking, so lost. I’d probably need to talk to a therapist to find out why that resonates with me so deeply.”

The Master is another of Anderson’s bad-nerve symphonies, its crisp 70-mm. compositions punctuated by bursts of psychic feedback, freak-out, and assorted Andersonian voodoo. Like his 2007 Oscar winner There Will Be Blood, it’s essentially a psychodrama played out between two men, an alcoholic veteran (Phoenix) who falls under the spell of L. Ron ­Hubbard–esque Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the leader of a new religion flourishing in the shadow of the Second World War. Adams plays his devoted wife, a Lady Macbeth–like amanuensis whose blue eyes boil with fury at unbelievers. “I do not want to run into her in a dark alleyway,” says Adams. “Give me [my character] Charlene from The Fighter any day, we can have a beer, talk about it, we’ll have fun. This woman scares the shit out of me. Excuse my language.”

Ever since it was announced that Anderson was making a film seemingly based, at least in part, on the founding of Scientology, the project has been cloaked in secrecy. “You’re the first person I’ve talked to about it,” says Adams, as if expecting a lightning bolt to strike. Anderson’s working methods were new to her. Even for scenes in which she was not scheduled to appear, she was instructed to show up, just to make her presence felt. “It was exhausting, but I love the effect,” she says. “She’s almost blurry.” Often, she had no idea whether the camera was on her, as during one scene in which Hoffman leads his followers in naked sing-along around a piano; Adams had to sit as demurely as possible, nude except for a pregnant-belly prosthetic.

“It was one of the most surreal evenings of my life, and I’ve had some pretty surreal evenings, up there with giving birth,” she says. “I was in a surreal place, because my daughter still wasn’t sleeping through the night and we were shooting nights. I felt like I was a little on edge, I was a little cuckoo, so I just sort of brought it.” For another scene in which Phoenix is ruthlessly “processed,” Anderson handed her a page of Victorian pornography and told her to read it straight to camera. “I’m like, Wait, is Paul trying to break [me] down? Is he doing this to me?”

It all sounds a little, well, cultlike, with the secretive Anderson imposing his will upon a cast and crew systematically discombobulated by working methods designed to keep them subtly off-balance throughout. “I won’t go that far,” she says. “But I do kind of worship Paul. He’s magnificent.” There’s a lot of the true believer in Adams, with her big blue eyes and bushy-tailed manner. That she was once a greeter at the Gap makes perfect sense. Her best performances—the motor-mouthed Ashley in Junebug (2005), the princess in Enchanted (2007)—have mined the comedy and pathos of the pathologically optimistic: sweet Pollyannas hoisting their beliefs aloft against a rising tide of reality.

“I do seem to be attracted to that,” she says. “Maybe I’m a disappointed optimist.” The fourth of seven children, she was raised a Mormon until the age of 12, when her parents separated and left the church, her father eventually moving to Arizona, Amy and her mother to Atlanta. “I’m always careful,” she says, “because I still have relatives I care very much about who are involved, but I definitely did see growing up a lot of women that were meant to be quiet and pleasant, and if you had something mean to say it’s probably best to keep a journal.”

If her early work came lit up with the infectious inner glow of the onetime believer, her more recent roles—in 2008’s Doubt, and The Master—have flipped that faith on its back like a beetle. Under the right directors—David O. Russell on The Fighter, Anderson on The Master—Adams has revealed real steel in those baby blues. “Amy is very private,” says Robert Lorenz, the director of this fall’s Trouble With the Curve, of one scene in which Adams lets Clint Eastwood have it in a diner for being an absentee dad. “I asked her during filming, which of her roles was the closest to the real Amy, and she said, ‘This one.’ She was definitely addressing some aspect of her personal life in the role.” Eastwood’s words to the director after the scene was finished: “You got the right girl.”

Since having a daughter herself—2-year-old Aviana, with her actor-fiancé Darren Le Gallo—Adams has been much more aware of “how protective I am with my feelings. God, even telling you, I can feel this tightening in my chest.” She puts a hand to the base of her neck. “I think playing vulnerable, joyful characters was sort of a shield for me. You know, if I showed enough of who I was, maybe people wouldn’t look for anything else. I promised myself I wouldn’t go forward in my life and not be as honest as possible.”

Beautiful review... Not that spoilerful, but posting it here just in case.

"THE MASTER"By Christopher Hall (Mixtape Magazine)

I was really nervous last night. I didn’t know what to expect. Standing outside that theater door, that deep white floor of the Museum of the Moving Image below my feet, I looked around at a collected lot of film taste makers—filmmakers, actors, studio management—each one of them drawn to the magnetism of the moment.

Everyone was talking. They were talking about a film, and a director, that had been appearing, and disappearing just as quickly, across the country. The mystique of the film, and its rollout, transforming this motion picture into something far grander then just 137 minutes of celluloid.

The crowd sat hushed. Engaging in quiet whispers, waiting for the curtain to part. In walked Paul Thomas Anderson, who when asked if he wanted to say anything before the film started, responded –“Just roll it.”

It’s impossible to review this film within moments, or hours, perhaps even days. This film needs to be lived with, analyzed, argued about. So this isn’t a review. It’s just a feeling.

It’s not about scientology. It’s about religion, but it’s not. It’s about lost souls. It’s about the people we try to find common ground with. It’s about traveling half way around the world because we’re scared, because we’re searching for something, because we want to find someone to believe in us. It’s about family. Insanity. Alcoholism. Brutality. Anger. Trust. Belief. It’s vivid and tangible and unflinching.

It’s gorgeous. A complete symphony of visuals—the 70mm making the argument for destroying every digital camera in the world. The eye-popping blues of the ocean. The pale marble of the department store. The rich shadows of a dark office before one takes the stage. The magic potions of Freddie Sutton strong enough for you to smell through the screen. The acting impeccable. The score driven and unsettling.

Leaving the theater I felt punch drunk, completely enchanted with what I had just watched. I thought about that great thing that had happened, that perfect moment of racking focus to a boat, or that first session, or the jail cell juxtaposition of absolute calm and absolute mania. All of these memories flooding back to me. I don’t know if it’s Anderson’s best film, I won’t know that for a while. I do know that it was thrilling to watch a filmmaker throwing himself completely into the deep end and in turn producing something incredible. This film needs to be seen. It needs to be experienced. The startling blue ocean in the wake of that ship needs to pass through your retinas, imprint in your brain and live there for a while. And make sure you see it in 70mm.

The Master, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, will be released September 14th.

The Amy Adams article was great. One of the aspects of PTA's art that often seems to go unaddressed is how he manages to pull career-defining performances out of every actor he gets his hands on. He's clearly turning into Kubrick more and more with each passing film.

I agree Polkablues, that Amy Adams article is fantastic, and also the first of many interviews with the cast, cannot wait to hear what more they have to say. He is definitely turning into our generation's Kubrick with each passing film, demanding a complete devotion for the film. My god Paul is so inspiring, I want to hear more stories of his methodology in direction.

It’s about traveling half way around the world because we’re scared, because we’re searching for something, because we want to find someone to believe in us.

That sounds a little like Antonioni's The Passenger, looks like it's a bit more than just a visual reference.

Yes... And now that I think about it, it also sounds like Sofia Coppola's "Lost in translation". Two films that we know for a fact have inspired PTA.

I guess, above all of these similarities and comparisons, what intrigues me the most is that every review talks about this film being "different, unlike anything we've ever seen before, expect the unexpected, etc" and I believe that I will think the same thing when I watch it.

For some weird reason, now I understand what Pubrick was telling me about how "references don't matter that much", which is why I've cool it with the references (though I did find a few more ). I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I was wrong by trying to pin the film down or water it down in some sort of ignorant way (maybe in a futile attempt at understanding pta's filmmaking genius) with the references. I see now that above all, this movie and PTA stand on their own... and there are no comparisons that can take that away.... and I don't know why, but I just felt like saying that.